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Last updated on Wednesday, April 25, 2012
(INDIANAPOLIS) - The man who killed an Indiana University student is appealing his conviction.
John Myers was sentenced to 65 years in prison for murdering Jill Behrman. The co-ed disappeared in 2000 and her remains weren't found until 3 years later.
Now, a judge has scheduled a post-conviction relief hearing for June of next year. All evidence in the case will be made available to Myers' new lawyers for this latest appeal.
Myers was found guilty of Behrman's murder in 2006 and sentenced to a 65-year jail term, the maximum for murder, for killing 19-year-old Jill Behrman. Under Indiana's sentencing guidelines, he will serve just half that time if he abides by prison rules.
Behrman disappeared on a bicycle ride May 31, 2000. Her remains were found near Paragon by hunters nearly three years after she disappeared. She had been shot at close range in the back of the head with a .12-gauge shotgun.
Controversy shadowed the original trial when then Defense attorney Patrick Baker claimed they had not received all of an investigator's notes in the case implicating another suspect.
Bernie DeStefano, a Monroe County man serving a 189-year-sentence at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility for rape, criminal deviate conduct, confinement, escape and illegal gun possession, had contacted Baker. He claimed someone else killed Behrman. However at the time Indiana State Police investigators said DeStefano kept changing his story.
There were also claims of jury misconduct. The defense claimed jurors in the Myers case didn't act properly, that they drank alcohol, that at least one called home on a bailiff's cell phone and that a television set was smuggled in to the sequestered group.
Jurors deliberated less than an hour after a lengthy trial, the attorney's said adding that gave rise to a presumption that the jury had been discussing the case and deliberating throughout the trial.
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